Swatchless

Would you like to add a little bit of colour to something that is already knit?  Duplicate stitch may be what you are looking for.  It can be used in the O Canada mittens (Olympic mittens) as an alternative to the stranded colourwork.  Follow the charts in duplicate stitch after the red mittens are completed.

You need:

• a darning needle, or a needle with an eye big enough for the yarn that you are using.
• yarn for duplicate stitch (contrasting colour to the original knit fabric)
• original knit fabric

What to do:

Step 1:  Thread your needle, and come up through a hole (at the bottom of a V) from the wrong side of the fabric.  The right side should be facing you.

insert needle through from the wrong side of the fabric to the right side.

Step 2: From the hole, follow the yarn upwards.  It will loop behind 2 strands of yarn and back down again.  That’s what you do with your yarn.  Trace the path with the needle!

insert the needle through both sides of a stitch one row up.

Step 3:  Pull the yarn through, you have now traced half a stitch.

Pull yarn through, you now have half a duplicate stitch!

Step 4:  Follow the other half of the stitch back down.  The needle will be inserted under 2 more strands of yarn.

Keep tracing the path of the yarn

Step 5: Pull the yarn tight and you can see one stitch, a little heart shape, in your contrasting colour.

One stitch has been duplicated!

With practice it gets pretty fast.  Just always remember to follow the path of the yarn and you’ll be fine.

several stitches complete (3 in the top row, 4 in the bottom row)

What other techniques would you like help with?

Well, ya never know what’s around the corner…I flipped to Ravelry yesterday to find an announcement to a party–a SEARCH PARTY!

The motivation was to have knitters/crocheters classify all the patterns on Ravelry,  and I guess to cull the pages with dead links.  They are getting ready to release a new search tool that will allow us to search based on many different attributes, from construction technique to the texture of the fabric.

Of course, knowing Ravelry, there are great incentives for us to comb through the patterns–a prize draw for some gorgeous prize packages. (photo credits: Ravelry.com)

I spent quite a bit of time online classifying things, I think I got 217 patterns done before they ran out of patterns to sort.

Knitters are truly amazing people–there are no limits to what a group of us can do!

Stop by and classify some patterns if you have a moment.  It’s gonna help keep Ravelry awesome!

When two fiber enthusiasts get together you’d better stand back–the fleece will be flying!

Tonight I had the pleasure of meeting Teira in person.  I’ve met her on Ravelry and through reading her blog, but to be in the same room with someone who is keen to discuss the ins and outs of washing fleece, or experiments with dyeing, or recent spinning wheel issues, was something very new for me.

What's on Teira's wheel?

Apart from meeting a new fiber friend, I learned a new skill tonight–combing wool.  Now, if you’ve never prepared a fleece before, you may not be familiar with this term.

Combing wool is different than carding wool.

Carding wool uses anything from a dog brush, to hand cards to a drum carder, but all of these tools are similar in that they are a surface that has small teeth placed in rows across the entire area.

image source: wikimedia.org dog brush

image source: pacificwoolandfiber.com hand cards

image source: clemes.com drum carder

Carding will leave you with a batt (a flat mass of fiber that has been brushed). There will still be short and long pieces, and there might still be bits of grass left in the batt–of course this depends on how fine the carding cloth is (the more teeth per inch, the better job it does of brushing out all the unwanted bits).

Combing, I realized tonight, is TOTALLY different.  The resulting fiber is smooth and uniform without any dirt or short pieces–those end up on the floor!  Also, and very important to know…combs could be weapons!  They have two rows of stainless steel tines that are very sharp.  Be very careful when using combs!

image source: bountifulspinweave.com

Here’s how to comb fleece:

Step 1:  Fix one comb to the table so it will not move.  Mini combs can be used one in each hand, but I don’t think I’m coordinated enough for that yet.

Step 2:  Load the locks (clumps of fleece) onto the stationary comb so that the butt end of the lock (the end that was cut off the sheep) is stuck in the teeth of the comb.  Don’t load it too full!

Step 3: Put the moving comb (teeth downward) into the locks starting at the tips and working toward the base.  Continue this until the fleece is almost entirely transferred to the moving comb.  All the short pieces will be left in the teeth of the stationary comb–discard these.

Teira demonstrates how to comb

Step 4:  Change combs–secure the full comb to the table, and use the empty comb as your moving comb.  Transfer the fleece back to the other comb by brushing in a similar fashion.

Step 5:  Using a diz (anything with a fine hole in it–Teira has a seashell), thread the combed fleece through the hole, grip tightly and pull the fleece through the hole to make a roving.  If the fleece is not combed open enough, the roving may not pull out nicely.  This part took the most practice for me!

Teira demonstrates the diz

There you have it, 5 steps to combing fleece!  Thanks so much Teira for the great lesson.

I knit a wool hat today.

It is close to 35 C with the humidity.  It’s the kind of heat that makes you want to go outside and lay on the grass under a sprinkler…if only we could have sprinklers.

This is the kind of heat that conjures up memories of being in a phone booth at noon in Kyoto in August.  It’s a sticky muggy heat when sweat seems to trickle at even the thought of moving.

And I knit a hat……I must be going crazy.

Now, to find someone crazy enough to model it….

Note:  The pattern will be coming soon, in case someone in the southern hemisphere feels like wearing wool.

I’ve been working away with the tour de fleece, but there’s not much to show for what I’ve done.  It’s slow going.  It’s HOT and humid.  I think that’s the biggest issue.  I really don’t want to even look at fleece right now.  I’m not complaining, I know that in January I was asking for the heat.

Little by little I’m carding and spinning up thick singles right now.  With the heat, and the short intervals of spinning time I’m not making great progress, and what’s worse is that I’m getting bored already with spinning white fleece.  That’s a lie, it’s not entirely white.  It’s coloured by the flecks of desperate vegetable matter still clinging to the wool….

I think on a cooler day, that the yarn will look rustic and natural and make really warm and sturdy mittens, but right now I’m thinking of iced tea not mittens!

In other wheel spinning action, my trusty 3 speed bike is now working again!  It had a terrible run-in with a whipper snipper last week which left the tire wall threadbare.  Thanks to my dad, his tools and WD40, we got the tire changed in record time.

whipper snipper was the last straw

Now, don’t feel too sorry for me…the bike is and always will be a bit of a junker–the kind of bike that is worth less than the lock.  It’s my favourite summer transportation though, and I was eager to get it back on the road.

This tire may have doubled the worth of the bike!

If the weather stays like this, I may just ride to the lake and jump in!

What are you doing to stay cool?

In the middle of Eclipse, during the tent scene, I found myself reaching for pen and paper to jot down the design for Bella’s striped hat.  I paused, realizing what a geek this action made me, but continued to write furiously, until I had figured out most of the striped pattern.

image source: http://4.bp.blogspot.com

For some reason, this picture shows the hat in green and white stripes, but in the movie I’d swear it looked more grey.  In any case, I came home and rummaged through my stash, and came up with this design.

Here’s the pattern, in case you’d like to make your own. [Ravelry]

click to get .pdf pattern

Bella’s Eclipse Hat

Needles: Size 4.5mm – 5.5mm DPN (what ever size you need to achieve gauge)

Yarn: grey and white worsted weight yarn

Gauge: 4.5 sts per inch

Cast On 88 stitches in grey.

Join in the round, being careful not to twist. Work 2 inches of K1, P1 ribbing.
Knit 5 rows white
Knit 3 rows grey
Knit 2 rows white
Knit 1 row grey
Knit 3 rows white
Knit 5 rows grey
Knit 2 rows white
Knit 3 rows grey
Knit 1 row white
Knit 2 rows grey
Knit 3 rows white

Working in grey yarn only begin decreases:
(K9, K2tog) around. 80 sts remain
K round (K8, K2tog) around. 72 sts remain
K round
(K7, K2tog) around. 64 sts remain
K round
(K6, K2tog) around. 56 sts remain
K round
(K5, K2tog) around. 48 sts remain
(K4, K2tog) around. 40 sts remain
(K3, K2tog) around. 32 sts remain
(K2, K2tog) around. 24 sts remain
(K1, K2tog) around. 16 sts remain
K2tog around. 8 sts remain
Break yarn and draw through remaining stitches. Weave in all ends.

Goal setting is a difficult art.  Setting a challenging, yet attainable goal is something I struggle with, particularly with my knitting.  The nice thing is that I know that if I don’t meet my knitting deadlines the world isn’t going to end, yet I continue to make lofty goals to challenge myself.

photo souce: Julie P. Miller's Flickr

My self induced challenge this month was to knit a pair of eclipse socks for the movie release June 30th.  Yes, I’m a grown up that lined up to see Eclipse….yes, I’m a grown up that went to a pre-party to watch New Moon again before Eclipse…..We did this before the New Moon movie, and I’m sure that we’ll be doing the same for the next in the series!

The past few days had been far busier, and I was far more tired than planned, and my poor little Eclipse sock was not much more than a toe on the morning of June 30th. It had been carried around in my bag most of the week.  Every time I reached in to grab my keys, or wallet I got jabbed by those double pointed needles.  (I am sporting a bandaid now from a key finding mission).  It was a constant reminder of how I should really take a minute to knit a bit and breathe a bit.

Finally at 4:00PM I had my chance.  I sat in a friend’s blacked out living room, and knit, watched New Moon being projected on the big screen while we all munched on delicious snacks, and had moments to breathe, and be silly.

I knit through the car ride to the theatre (I wasn’t driving).  I knit in line, and was glad that we were inside this time!  Arriving 1.5 hours early to the movie has its perks.  I knit in the theatre waiting for the big show.  I even turned a heel during the movie!  It’s not a perfect heel, but that’s proof that it was done in the dark. I knit at a coffee shop after the movie, and when we got kicked out–they were closing, we weren’t rowdy–I knit at a friend’s house.

Such dedicated crazy knitting allowed me to complete an entire sock by midnight on June 30th.  I’m halfway there!

If you leave a bag of raw sheep fleece in the car all afternoon, be prepared for a particularly ripe odor when you open the door.

I got a large feed bag full of raw fleece today.  It is much softer, crimpier (wavier) and has a shorter staple (hair length) than the fleeces I’ve had before.  I’m hoping that these characteristics will lead to a much softer and less scratchy yarn when it is all said and done.

can't ya smell it??

After work, I poured a nice hot bath, and dumped the whole stinkin’ lot into the tub.  I use a washing liquid (pH 4.5) which maintains the acidity, and is beneficial for the wool.

Something of supreme importance in this whole process is a bathtub drain filter.  This can be picked up at a hardware store, and it will reduce the amount of hair and sticks that go down the drain.

It’s at this point that I wonder if the fleece will ever get completely white, and I wonder if my bathtub will be white again.

What is the most important thing to do when you plan a vacation? Well, after figuring out where to go, who to go with, and where to sleep, my mind started wandering to where I can find good roving and yarn.  (I MAY have a bit of a problem!)

If you are traveling with another knitter or spinner, then you are set!  If you are traveling with non-knitters, you might need to disguise your itinerary a little.  Get your groceries at a farmers market that just so happens to sell wool too.  Go to a farm (that sells fleece and roving) to see the animals sheep and goats.  Find a good restaurant that might be across the street from a yarn store.  All of this takes quite a bit of planning…

Here’s my approach

Step 1:  Check on Ravelry to find local yarn stores near where you are staying.  Search the “people” section for people from the area, and ask them where they get the best quality yarn.

Step 2:  Search for local farms.  I found farmfresh.org to be very helpful.  Search by the product (veggies, honey, roving etc), or search by the town.  Maps and websites and farmers market details are all listed.

Step 3:  Ask on Twitter to see if anyone has recommendations of area farms to visit, markets or sheep and wool festivals to go to, or local yarn stores that are not to be missed.

Step 4:  Put all the locations on a Google map.  It is a great way to keep all the information in one place.  Link to websites, keep track of business hours or market days.  Use streetview where available so you know what the yarn store looks like when you “stumble upon it by chance”.

So far my plans include visiting alpacas on Martha’s Vineyard, pygora goats near Providence Rhode Island, llamas at Journey’s End Ranch in Middleboro MA, and sheep at River Valley Farm in Lennox MA.

If you know of anywhere in the Cape Cod Area that’s worth a visit, let me know.

The ground shook today….

…and of course, someone whipped out their camera to film…

fish tanks were rocked from Quebec to Cleveland!

There was some damage close to the epicenter

source: canada.com

But here in Kingston, it just felt like someone was shaking my chair. I have never felt an earthquake before–once I was sure that things here had stopped moving I called my family to ask if they felt it too, and then turned to Twitter to get updates.  Breaking news flooded in from so many shaken people way before anything popped up on the USGS map.

I learned something today….I had no idea that we had fault lines near Ottawa.  I thought the Canadian Shield was pretty solid.

New top secret project, inspired from today, is on the needles.  Photos to come once there’s significant progress made!